Flip Book & Thaumatrope

In this workshop I was to produce a Flip book and Thaumatrope animation, if possible relating in some way to my news story. To create a Flip book I had to fold the paper to be fairly small and cut it in a way that would allow me to put a flip book together and have usable. I came across a few problems along the way, the folding for a start was quite confusing but once I got through that more problems arose when it came to stapling  the book together on side, which was made impossible by thickness of the book. I also had to cut the edge so it would flip easily, this didn't work either, as the edges just became rough which made it had to use. In an attempt to fix this I tried using tape to stick the pages together loosely which didn't work well but it did the job. The main problem came to actually 'play' the animation, flip through the book, once I had drawn in each frame/page, instead I decided to show it off it would be best if I just took photos instead and so did so to run it better. I never finished the whole book as I came across these problems along the way, which too time to figure out but what ended up with is a simple look at what flip books are and how they work. If I where to do this again I would try finding a different method to actually make a flip book as this one didn't seem ti work well for me, it may be best to just buy a small sketch book or create something simpler and smaller so that it would work, such as folding a sheet of paper into small squares and cutting it up evenly, not too thick so I can staple it together or possible glue the top of every sheet, and make sure to cut it in a way that I can flip through easily.

A Thaumatrope is to images on either side of a small piece of paper that relate in some way and work together so that when you flip the paper one goes into the other, such as drawing a bird on one side and a cage on another, giving the appearance that the bird is in a cage. To try and relate this to my news story I decided to draw a bomb going off. I don't think mine worked so well, this is partly because I couldn't make sense of how to work it well in my head and I don't think the thing I chose to do worked so well. To make a Thaumatrope, you simply need to cut out a small piece of paper, I used a circle to create mine, as most seem to do, but it can work with other shapes and even more pictures. The basic is to have 2 pieces of paper the same size that flip into each other, more pieces can be used for a more complicated piece. You then stick these 2 pieces of paper together on a stick so that you can flip it easily and then just twirl the stick in your hand and it should create some kind of animation/illusion based on what you have drawn.

Studio Ghibli

Studio Ghibli is a Japanese film company who create wondrous and magical fantasy animations, such as spirited away. Ghibli films are mainly created using a hand drawn technique, only rarely using CGI (Computer Generated Imagery). For this every single frame has to be drawn out by animators before putting it together to create the animation, there is a lot more to it than just this though. Each scene must be drawn out, frame by frame, it is then transferred onto carbon sheets before being burnt onto transparent cells. This is when color is added using water color paints. Backgrounds are created separately from characters, the cells are then placed onto the corresponding backgrounds and each frame is shot individually. It is then the job of the editor to sync up the actions with sounds, such as speaking, the timing must be precise as the images must match the dialogue/sounds accordingly. Everything is then put together creating the final outcome. Studio Ghibli films are made for entertainment with original stories. In the case of Spirited Away the story is very magical and entertaining, the feeling of the film is quite mysterious as a lot of the things going on can be confusing at first as well as wondrous and exciting. I plan on creating my own animation using a hand drawn technique, while I will make mine in a much more simple style, I really enjoy the movies Studeo Ghibli creates and love the art style of them, with beautiful scenery and interesting characters. I am also planning on having monsters in my animation, some of the inspiration for this comes from some of the creatures that appear in Studio Ghibli movies, such as the character No Face from Spirited Away.

This quote is an extract from an article I found describing the work that Studio Ghibli puts into creating a  animated movie.
"The majority of Studio Ghibli films are made using traditional animation techniques. So what does this mean? EVERY SINGLE FRAME is hand-drawn by animators, before being put together to give the illusion of movement and create the film. This is a very repetitive and time-consuming process but the studio’s co-founder Hayao Miyazaki believes that “hand drawing on paper is the fundamental of animation”."

Student Led Workshop


We were split into groups and given a subject within animation to teach to the rest of the class. My group had to teach how to edit using Windows Live Movie Make and iMovie. To do so we came up with tasks for each group member and planed out how the lesson would go. I focused on learning all I could about the software and producing a little example on what could be done with it and having to plan a little demo of how to use it, while the others worked on producing a PowerPoint presentation as well as handouts.

Editing is an important part of animation as it sets the pace of it and adds more details, as well as helping set the tone and mood for the overall animation. It is important to use editing to help create to atmosphere wanted and polish off all the final details.

Hand Drawn Animation

For this workshop we were to make a simple hand drawn stick figure animation in pairs. Me and my partner came up with a narrative based upon his news story, the narrative was about these islanders who appeared normal and sophisticated but are actually crazy. We never got the animation finished as we attempted more than we could handle and what we did end up with was a very basic introduction to hand drawn animation with very little variety. Although unfinished this project showed us how hard animating can be and how much work needs to be done to create an animation. The technique we used was to draw out everything on to a thin piece of transparent paper and then trace over it on a similar sized piece and then take a picture of each frame. With this technique adding too much detail, as we did, is extremely time consuming! However with the ability to draw whatever comes to mind it is a very open way to create an animation. There are better ways this kind of thing can be done so you wouldn't have to draw out everything on each frame using a program such as Photoshop may help shorten the time, another way may be to use the paper differently, such as drawing a background on one piece and a character on other pieces and moving them around on the background. However with this technique there are many ways that you could present your animation in, the way we did t was to move previous frames away after use, although leaving them in and maybe moving the position of the next frame and camera could leave a trail behind.

Lotte Reiniger

The videos above show the work of Lotte Reiniger, the first is an example of her work, the second showing how she actually made her animations. She is an animator who worked with shadow puppet animation, focusing on stories such as fair tales or folk-lore. She used pins in black card to move limbs, her narrative was told through the movements of characters. The designs also held a big part in her work each character needs to be distinct and match their role in the story, with little detail because of the materials used. To crate her animations she cut out charters and background details from black card. Each character would be cut into different pieces, separating limbs, such as arms be cut away from the body and then she would pierce a pin through the arm and body where they would join which allows for movement, she would do this with every limb. She puts together the the scene on to a light box, and then adds characters into it slowly moving them bit by bit and taking a picture for each frame. In the Hansel and Gretel story, as seen above, there are characters such as the children (Hansel & Gretel) as well as the witch as well as animals such as a squirrel. The scenery is of a forrest and a house, the witches house and cages. The images se has used are her interpretation of the fairytale Hansel and Gretel. The typography in the animation is used to introduce the story and credit the the work, animating and design as well as voices and music within the animation. She would have made these animations to entertain an audience. Because of the style of the animation the shots are limited, only using a side view of the scene, this is because of the limitations with this technique, using a variety of shots with different angles could wreck the narrative and confuse the viewer. I have experimented with shadow puppet animation, i made my characters quite simple in comparison to Lotte but have tried to make my characters distinctive. I used the same techniques she has to create the animation, I decided on a fairly simple story, Instead of using a light box I just placed my components together and moving characters slowly taking pictures with a camera for each frame.

Chalkboard Animation

Yanni Kronenberg

Chalkboard animation is a unique type of hand drawn stop motion on a large scale with a lot of potential to create beautiful sophisticated animations. Autumn Song is almost like a continuous line drawing however atmosphere and detail are added by blending the lines of the previous cell. This effect has been created by rubbing out the previous drawing, or frame and then then drawing the next frame in, leaving behind the ghostly chalky effect from previous frames giving this technique a defined style. This video has characters fly across chalkboards and morphing into different things. The narrative is quite loose in this way because it takes the viewer away from a sense of reality within the piece and gives off an eerie feeling to it, as something is moving unnaturally, because it's almost placing you in a room with the animation happening around you. Mixing the technique with how it has been presented gives the animation a magical or even mythical feeling to it.
To attempt to create a chalkboard animation of our own were split into groups and had to come up with a narrative between us. Our narrative became a pig coming down from the mountains which then gets shot by a soldier. This idea came from an attempt to represent each of our news stories, which for the most part, however ridiculous the story may be, it does do so. In our group we gave each person a job, one member worked on animating the pig, another drawing in and animating the background details, another animating the soldier, and I was in charge of the camera. The chalk as a material gives off a nice effect to the piece, the chalk itself can be used in many different ways, for us we took some inspiration from Autumn Song in that with each frame we would rub out the previous leaving us with a ghostly trail effect.

Sand Animation

Ilana Yahav is a sand animation artist the video above is of her work. She creates scenes while recording, using the sand in different ways to change scenes. these kind of animations  are usually done with a music track in the background and so would be created as a form of entertainment. She has used a light box and sand to create the animation, pouring different quantities of sand to make tone and structure. Each scene is created by pouring or sprinkling sand to from shapes that become backgrounds, people, and animals. After each scene is created she morphs it into the next one by wiping over parts of the scene and building them up into something else and gradually working across the screen. To add detail she builds up lines of sand or wipes through a section with her hand in a pattern to create something such as hair. The imagery used is of people and places to try and create a narrative, the narrative is hard to find as there is not so much story telling within the work, that is because of the technique it's self, as you are working with sand it's very difficult to make a clear story based animation. The change of composition with each scene is one of the only ways that enables more variety. Her work inspired me because of the meaning on the stories that are personal to her and she puts in emotion to her work.

For this workshop we were put into groups and asked to decide on a narrative that could be told using sand animation and how we wanted to portray it. Our group decided it would be best if we fused all of our news stories together to benefit us all, thanks to this our narrative is about a train on an island that gets ambushed and crashes into a rock. For the technique we decided to attempt a stop motion style were we poured the sand into cones, and cut off the bottom at different sizes to use the sand to 'draw' onto the black paper. with each bit taking a picture for each frame. I found working with sand in this way to be very difficult because moving it in anyway would destroy the form and you would then have to recreate it all over again. Sand as a material is quite difficult to work with as it is messy and takes patience to be able to do as you want with, but it allows for an interesting technique and gives off a certain mystical quality when used well.

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-26116868

Syria: The story of the conflict

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Over the past three years, more than 100,000 Syrians have lost their lives in the escalating conflict between forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and those opposed to his rule. The bloody internal conflict has destroyed whole neighbourhoods and forced more than nine million people from their homes.

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It's like a terrifying nightmare that just keeps going on and on. You live everyday as if it's your last because you might die any second"

Doctor in rural Damascus

AFP

This is the story of the civil war so far, in eight short chapters.

1. Protests

The conflict has its roots in protests that erupted in March 2011 in the southern city of Deraaafter the arrest and torture of some teenagers who painted revolutionary slogans on a school wall.

When security forces opened fire on demonstrators, killing several, more took to the streets. The unrest triggered nationwide protests demanding President Assad's resignation.

The government use of military force to crush the dissent merely hardened the protesters' resolve. By July 2011, hundreds of thousands were taking to the streets in towns and cities across the country.

More: Protest footage from June 2011 mapped

2. Violence

Opposition supporters eventually began to take up arms, first to defend themselves and later to expel security forces from their local areas.

The country descended into civil war as rebel brigades battled government forces for control of cities, towns and the countryside. Fighting reached the capital Damascus and second city of Aleppo in 2012.

In July 2013, the UN said more than 100,000 people had been killed. It has stopped updating the death toll, but activists say it now exceeds 140,000.

More: Mapping the conflict

3. The opposition

The opposition remains fractious and deeply divided, unable to agree much apart from the need to end President Assad's rule.

On the political front, alliances have been formed to gain international recognition. But they have been weakened by power struggles, a lack of support from grassroots activists and rebels, and limited financial and military assistance.

The armed rebellion has evolved significantly, with as many as 1,000 groups commanding an estimated 100,000 fighters. Secular moderates are outnumbered by Islamists and jihadists linked to al-Qaeda, whose brutal tactics have caused widespread concern and triggered rebel infighting.

More: Who are the forces opposed to Assad?

4. MassacresContinue reading the main story

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A UN commission of inquiry has been investigating all alleged violations of international human rights law since March 2011. It has evidence showing that both sides have committed war crimes including torture, hostage-taking, murder and execution.

Although investigators have been denied entry into Syria and their communications with witnesses have been restricted, they have confirmed at least 27 incidents of intentional mass killings.

They believe 17 were perpetrated by government forces and pro-government militia, including the incidents that left hundreds of civilians dead in Houla in May 2012 and Baniyas in August 2013. Rebel groups have meanwhile been blamed for 10 massacres, including the slaughter of at least 190 people in the Latakia countryside in August 2013 by jihadist and hardline Islamist fighters.

More: Both sides 'committing war crimes'

5. Chemical weapons

Before the uprising began, the Syrian military had one of the world's largest stockpiles of chemical weapons, comprising more than 1,000 tonnes of precursor chemicals and chemical agents, including sulphur mustard and sarin.

The government insisted the toxic arsenal was secure and would never be used "inside Syria", but reports of chemical attacks began to surface in early 2013.

Then on 21 August 2013, rockets filled with sarin were fired at several suburbs in the Ghouta agricultural belt around Damascus, killing between 300 and 1,430 people. The opposition and Western powers said it could only have been carried out by the government. President Assad blamed rebels for the deaths, but within weeks he agreed to a US and Russian deal that is hoped will see the removal and destruction of Syria's chemical weapons by the end of June 2013.

More: How are the chemical weapons being destroyed?

6. RefugeesContinue reading the main story

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In one of the largest refugee exoduses in recent history, more than 2.5 million people have fled Syria since the start of the conflict, most of them women and children. Neighbouring countries have borne the brunt of the refugee crisis, with Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey struggling to accommodate the flood of new arrivals. The exodus has accelerated dramatically since the start of 2013, as conditions in Syria have deteriorated drastically.

A further 6.5 million people are believed to be internally displaced within Syria, many of them without access to aid, bringing the total number forced to flee their homes to more than 9 million - half of the population.

The UN has asked for $6.5bn (£3.9bn) - its largest ever appeal - to provide medical care, food, water and shelter for the nearly three-quarters of Syrians expected to be in need of assistance in 2014.

More: Zaatari refugee camp - interactive guide

7. Proxy war

What began as another Arab Spring uprising against an autocratic ruler has mushroomed into a brutal proxy war that has drawn in regional and world powers.

Iran and Russia have propped up the Alawite-led government of President Assad and gradually increased their support, providing it with an edge that has helped it make significant gains against the rebels in the past year. The Sunni-dominated opposition has meanwhile enjoyed varying degrees of support from its main backers - Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Arab states along with the US, UK and France.

Lebanon's Shia Islamist Hezbollah movement and al-Qaeda-linked jihadist groups are also on the ground, supporting opposing sides and contributing to the steady rise of sectarianism.

More: Where countries stand on Syria

8. Peace talks

With neither side able to inflict a decisive defeat on the other, the international community long ago concluded that only a political solution could end to the conflict in Syria. However, a number of attempts by the Arab League and the UN to broker ceasefires and start dialogue have failed.

Then, in May 2013, the US and Russia began work to convene a conference in Switzerland to implement the 2012 Geneva Communique, a UN-backed international agreement that calls for the establishment of a transitional governing body in Syria formed on the basis of mutual consent.

The talks, which became known as Geneva II, did not begin until January 2014. They broke down the following month after only two rounds. The UN special envoy Lakhdar Brahimiblamed the Syrian government's refusal to discuss opposition demands and its insistence on a focus on fighting "terrorists" - a term Damascus uses to dismiss all opponents of Mr Assad.

More: Guide to the Geneva II talks

Notes on the casualty data: Figures from the UK-based activist group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights include civilians, rebel fighters and security forces personnel. Those from the Violations Documentation Center (which works with the Local Co-ordination Committees, an opposition activist network) and the opposition group Syrian Shuhada (Syrian Martyrs) include civilians and rebels' deaths, but not security forces personnel. Syrian Shuhada also counts unidentified bodies, the main reason its numbers are higher. Syrian government figures include civilians, soldiers and police, but not rebels.

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Produced by David Gritten, Lucy Rodgers and Emily Macguire.

The news story I have chosen to base my animation on is the Syrian conflict. The is of an article by the BBC on what has happened in Syria since the initial fighting began, and documenting major points in conflict. 2011 was the beginning of this conflict it started with protests in March of that year in th southern city of Derra after the arrest and torture of some teenagers who had painted revolutuionary slogans on a school wall. I will be looking at stories of victims of the conflict and how it's effected their lives as well as finding out more about what has been happening in Syria.